Forums are dead

[PatriotGB]

Maybe it is to do with logical thinking (whether or not fallacious). I suspect most militias may believe they are patriots, even though not all patriots may be part of a militia.

I think to many people, over the last few years, the word patriot implies something very different to what maybe it used to mean.

Or is it just a view held by people in countries where law abiding citizens would not own or carry firearms unless in a sporting context?

Or maybe being patriotic is a norm so seems unnecessary for there to be forums about it.

I consider myself a red-blooded flag-waving American Patriot (and Navy veteran). No doubt about that.

But, I'm not hardly what you're referring to as "militia." No tin foil hat. I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

I own a business creating jobs for others. Have a family. Rather ordinary, really.

Oh! And, I created a forum! And, I love the XenForo platform! It really is the only way to fly with forums, IMO. I believe that, in large part, the reason for the early success of my forum is because XenForo makes it a first-class user experience.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

LOL! The question asked (by @Agentos ) was very simple: How many users do you have in the forum?

I answered his simple question with a simple answer. He didn't ask the litany of more complex questions YOU have asked.

Of course, quantitative answers to your questions would require far more work than I'm willing to do in the context of this forum. But, I'll offer this, FWIW...

My forum focuses on a very narrow niche topic. I dare say that the quality of the posts is outstanding. We are a very focused group and stay on topic for most threads. Like most forums, there is a core group that is VERY active. Then there's a group that's "semi-active." And of course, there are those who only lurk. The active poster group is growing steadily.

I'm very pleased with the organic growth of my forum. There's the "Law of Attraction" or the saying that, "like attracts like." We've got a really good group of members going. Quality people making quality posts and having quality PRODUCTIVE discussions.

I'm not posting numbers to "make myself feel good." I posted the numbers to answer the question that was asked of me. A simple question with a simple answer.

I have not yet felt comfortable saying what my forum is about here. It's a controversial subject (needlessly, but it is). My forum has already established itself as a leading forum on this particular subject... that has been largely abandoned. The biggest forum on the topic shut down suddenly several months ago. My forum is picking up the pieces from there. There are a few other spin-off forums, but they are not nearly as busy as mine. Just the facts.

Those numbers do not equate to quality or value of members or content. Member numbers do not equate to activity. How many are fake profiles from bots? How many are actually posting and being active out of the 900 you showed? I suspect if the top 5 posters stopped posting, forum activity would tank. How about you stop posting threads and posts for a bit and let the members pick up that heavy lifting for a bit and see what happens.

Like I have stated previously, I visit a forum with over 50K members from time to time. Any given day you are lucky to see 50 posting. That is abysmal. And most posting are the same ones that frequent the forum and not new members.

Do a prune of members that have not been active in the last 60 days or have had less than 2 posts in that time frame. Then tell us what those numbers are again. I suspect those numbers again would drastically drop.

I know a forum that routinely pruned accounts. Their actual forum growth was significantly slower than it appeared.

And what you see as a 'productive discussion', others may see as just idle chit chat with no meaningful discussion once the original purpose of the thread was met.

So if I make a thread asking who the first president of the United States was, and someone responds with the correct answer of George Washington right away, the rest of that thread no longer serves a purpose other than idle chit chat. Especially if no other question was asked. I would then not hold that thread as a quality thread with valuable content.

If someone makes a thread talking about the latest movie, odds are that thread served it's purpose once it veers off into discussions about anything else and is no longer a quality thread. It's a common things for forums. Including this one and this thread. Thus degrading the actual quality of the thread and content.

Many forums won't prune inactive or fake or duplicate members because they think a bigger number entices people. Makes them think the forum is bigger and more active than it actually is.

So here's a challenge. Prune your forums of people that have been inactive for 60 or 90 days. Show a before and after picture of the results. I suspect your number likely would be cut down to AT LEAST 1/4th of what you showed or what anyone showed. Possibly less if it's just the same handful or even dozen people posting.

For example you showed 900 members with 1,686 threads. That equates to less than 2 threads per member. And my hunch is it's primarily the same group of people making the threads and posts.

Long story short forum owners trying to share numbers many times are just just partaking in useless peeing contests as they are most times just showing a fictional number not based in the reality of their forum. (Doesn't help when there are plug-ins to create fake numbers too.)

The numbers are deceptive to say the least for most forums. Because if all 900 members were actually posting, or even if a quarter of them were, the thread and post counts would be significantly higher. But they aren't. shrugs

 

[PatriotGB]

First... LOL at this entire comment. You must be a blast at parties.

So if I make a thread asking who the first president of the United States was, and someone responds with the correct answer of George Washington right away, the rest of that thread no longer serves a purpose other than idle chit chat. Especially if no other question was asked. I would then not hold that thread as a quality thread with valuable content.

The vast majority of threads are on the main topic of the forum. It's a group of VERY enthusiastic hobbyists. Of course, I set up sub-forums for humor and other topics. But, your banal straw man example of a question is... well... just silly.

So here's a challenge. Prune your forums of people that have been inactive for 60 or 90 days. Show a before and after picture of the results.

Dude... the forum is only 6 months old! LOL! I ain't "pruning" anyone!

And my hunch is it's primarily the same group of people making the threads and posts.

Well, yeah.... DUH! I've been a participant on forums since before Algore invented the interwebz. I've been doing online forums since around 1992.

Every forum has a core group of avid posters. Every forum has a group that posts intermittently. Every forum has a larger group of lurkers.

Long story short forum owners trying to share numbers many times are just just partaking in useless peeing contests

The only reason I posted the screen grab of forum stats was because the previous commenter ASKED me for the numbers. Soooooo... here's the numbers. I explained that to you previously. Did you not understand? I was answering this question:

How many users do you have in the forum?

Is there another way to answer that.... without the number?

I'm not engaging in a wiener measuring contest. My numbers, at this point, are minuscule on the grand stage of big time forums. I know that! LOL! But, this is just the beginning. 6 months old. Started with zero.

As I mentioned before... I've been active on forums for decades. I've got a pretty good handle on the forum culture. Your pessimistic speculation about my new forum matters not to me. I know what I've got. And, it's good. Really good... and getting better by the day. I'm onto something. The timing was fortuitous, as well. Furthermore, the feedback I'm getting from members / users is very positive.

I've been involved in website marketing for decades as well - creating my own business' website back in 1999. I created all the copy. I did all the SEO. One thing I learned: Content Is KING! I submit the same is true for forums. Quality content attracts TRAFFIC. And, in the world of the web... TRAFFIC is what counts.

Again... some credit goes to the first class user experience courtesy of XenForo. The smattering of "competing" forums are all on free platforms that cannot compare. The other HUGE mistake my competition has made is they are all closed forums. Guests can't see ANYthing. As a result, my basic metrics are 4 - 5X theirs in the same time frame.

So, it seems your purpose here... on a forum about forum management... is to discourage, denigrate, and troll. Sad, really. Step aside and watch how it's done.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

First... LOL at this entire comment. You must be a blast at parties.

The vast majority of threads are on the main topic of the forum. It's a group of VERY enthusiastic hobbyists. Of course, I set up sub-forums for humor and other topics. But, your banal straw man example of a question is... well... just silly.


Dude... the forum is only 6 months old! LOL! I ain't "pruning" anyone!


Well, yeah.... DUH! I've been a participant on forums since before Algore invented the interwebz. I've been doing online forums since around 1992.

Every forum has a core group of avid posters. Every forum has a group that posts intermittently. Every forum has a larger group of lurkers.
View attachment 273365

The only reason I posted the screen grab of forum stats was because the previous commenter ASKED me for the numbers. Soooooo... here's the numbers. I explained that to you previously. Did you not understand? I was answering this question:


Is there another way to answer that.... without the number?

I'm not engaging in a wiener measuring contest. My numbers, at this point, are minuscule on the grand stage of big time forums. I know that! LOL! But, this is just the beginning. 6 months old. Started with zero.

As I mentioned before... I've been active on forums for decades. I've got a pretty good handle on the forum culture. Your pessimistic speculation about my new forum matters not to me. I know what I've got. And, it's good. Really good... and getting better by the day. I'm onto something. The timing was fortuitous, as well. Furthermore, the feedback I'm getting from members / users is very positive.

I've been involved in website marketing for decades as well - creating my own business' website back in 1999. I created all the copy. I did all the SEO. One thing I learned: Content Is KING! I submit the same is true for forums. Quality content attracts TRAFFIC. And, in the world of the web... TRAFFIC is what counts.

Again... some credit goes to the first class user experience courtesy of XenForo. The smattering of "competing" forums are all on free platforms that cannot compare. The other HUGE mistake my competition has made is they are all closed forums. Guests can't see ANYthing. As a result, my basic metrics are 4 - 5X theirs in the same time frame.

So, it seems your purpose here... on a forum about forum management... is to discourage, denigrate, and troll. Sad, really. Step aside and watch how it's done.

Great! Do a prune of members that haven't been active the last 60 days. Then do a prune of members that have no posts. Then look at the top 5 members and what their total post and thread numbers are and how much they account for forum activity. Including you.

You say to watch how it's done? Clearly forums are struggling to do that, as are forum developers. Get back to me when they have overtaken social media or even gotten close to them in terms of popularity and usage rather than keep on the downhill slide they are on. Because clearly what you are saying isn't working. Period. Full stop.

You won't prune anyone because even you know that actual numbers are lower. Probably much lower. So you want to keep the artificial numbers high to use in sort of fictional peeing contest.

"Content Is KING"

And what can your forum offer that a simple Google search can't? Or a simple post on a place like Facebook or Reddit? Other than chit chat. I guarantee you likely offer no more content than anything that can be found anywhere else. If the content was king mantra was true, forums would be doing better but they aren't.

"We have 900 members! But only 5 that actually post frequently and account for 90% of the actual activity." That seems to be more of the real mantra with too many forums these days. And that's the problem.

"The vast majority of threads are on the main topic of the forum."

Well that's not good. Kinda defeats the purpose of a forum when 95% of the activity is in the main topic and the other areas are fairly useless. So yeah you could prune, but fake numbers are more important to try impress rather than the real ones. Right? Or is the truth that hard to swallow? What do you have to lose by pruning members that have never participated on your forum the last 90 days and likely never will be? What percentage of your members do you think that will erase?

 

[Nicolas FR]

@whitetigergrowl do you own a forum ?

 

[Max Fridman]

What do you have to lose by pruning members that have never participated on your forum the last 90 days and likely never will be?

What? Why should you do that? You have valuable informations like emails for example. And is a best practice that an account is forever if i don't choose deliberately to delete it. In our forum active since 2007 people value their account a lot. You receive points only because you registered your account years ago...deleting their accounts will make them angry or worst they will never register anymore. We often receive tickets to recover old accounts.

This discussion is pointless. And is basically a flame i don't understand with @PatriotGB. You seem to don't own a forum or even have the slightest idea how to work on one.

Micheal All posted recently a nice article about: Stop Measuring Community Engagement

Measure what you value​

I recently saw somebody say “We should measure what we value, not value what we measure”. Unfortunately for us, human psychology makes the latter inevitable. So our only hope is in the former, measuring what we value. Once again I want to emphasize that engagement is value-neutral. We shouldn’t measure it because it’s not what we should value.

So what should we value?

At the start of this, I said that people join your community for support, connection, opportunities to give back, and meaningful relationships. Those are the things they value, and those are the things you should value. And if you value them, you should measure them.

They’re not as easy to measure as engagement, sure, but they can be measured. The best part is that maximizing these metrics is always going to be good for your community.

Personally no one should try to become the next Facebook or Twitter or even the entire Reddit. The forum community philosophy should be around creating a space for people with the same interests to share thoughts, guides...you don't even need big numbers if you provide good value for your niche you will do fine.

 

[Wing]

Discord revolutionizes online conversations with... forums | Engadget

Discord, the social messaging service that helped to displace old-school internet forums, now wants to bring them back..

www.engadget.com

New details released today on Discords "revolutionary" forums. I dont see much revolutionary about it... but I guess I am oldschool...

 

[Mendalla]

Well, that looks awful. I'm not on Discord though. Maybe it's better in person?

 

[Crimson Sword]

Why is Facebook even being compared here? They likely have the same issues but at a larger scale. How many of their accounts aren't duplicates? How many of them aren't spam bots? Do they prune? I doubt it. I know of some people with 2, 3, as many as a dozen accounts if you search their names, and it's evident they're all the same person because of the profile pics, and they're not even hiding it.

I know I've made an alternative account before and didn't do anything; no picture, no bio update, no post, and Facebook never deleted it.

Forums is a niche hobby, that we as Administrators do for fun, to run & build a more informative place of discussion than the simplified things like Discord, Facebook groups, and chains of Tweet chats.

No one here is trying to be the next Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

The numbers are each forum's history, its their milestones.

 

[PatriotGB]

Again... wow. You are an angry, bitter, unsuccessful, FORMER forum owner, eh? Logically, I should just ignore you outright. But, I'll continue this entertaining thread for at least one more exchange.

Do a prune of members that haven't been active the last 60 days. Then do a prune of members that have no posts.

Why would I take such advice from a failed forum owner? That's never minding it's BAD advice. Why would I "prune" new members in a NEW forum?? Just because they haven't been "active??" I'm not looking to CHASE members away.

You won't prune anyone because even you know that actual numbers are lower.

No. I won't do it because the idea is stupid and counterproductive

And what can your forum offer that a simple Google search can't? Or a simple post on a place like Facebook or Reddit? Other than chit chat. I guarantee you likely offer no more content than anything that can be found anywhere else. If the content was king mantra was true, forums would be doing better but they aren't.

Fortunately, due to my previous experience with SEO and content creation, my NEW forum already shows up at the top of Google search results with keywords related to the content / subject of my forum.

"We have 900 members! But only 5 that actually post frequently and account for 90% of the actual activity."

That's your own speculation. It's more than five. I'll say that.

but fake numbers are more important to try impress rather than the real ones. Right?

I'm not trying to impress anyone. Another member here asked me for those numbers. I obliged him. Simple as that.

I'm active on another forum that has over 20M posts and 171k members. So, my NEW little forum pales in comparison. But, I am keeping it all in perspective. My forum topic is a niche within a niche. It's growing steadily and ORGANICALLY.

Or is the truth that hard to swallow? What do you have to lose by pruning members that have never participated on your forum the last 90 days and likely never will be? What percentage of your members do you think that will erase?

Dude... chill. It seems you are bitter and assuaging your guilt by trying to bring the rest of us down your vortex of doom and failure. But, no... I will not take your advice to kick new members off my new forum because they haven't posted anything. Seriously... that's got to be the dumbest "advice" I've heard.

Here's what I care about as it pertains to my forum's performance.... The member numbers are just a number that has little meaning without a QUALITATIVE context. I care about the QUALITY of the forum's discussions and participants. So far... it's ACES! We've got a great core group and lots of appreciative newbies. I "inherited" a number of core members (and experts in this topic) from the previous (now closed) forum dedicated to this subject.

Why did your forum(s) fail? Look in the mirror. Look in the mirror. You have to pour a LOT of ENERGY into a forum. You have to "prime the pump." You have to be a cheerleader. Every day. Create an inviting environment and then offer a ****-ton of GOOD CONTENT.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.
"Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those DOING IT."

 

[Crimson Sword]

Yeah I'd advise against the pruning, especially based on just getting 'active' members. I'm sure you can do that with other statistic addons. But we have members that only log back in once every year or so, with 0 posts, for well over 20 years. Some has begun to post over time, but not all. Some just likes to login, and access member-only features.

 

[Crimson Sword]

@whitetigergrowl do you own a forum ?

Superhero Empire

http://superheroempire.com I'm still working on the themes and testing the layouts. Would love some feedback though! :) And hey if you would like to join and be active that would be better yet! ;)

xenforo.com

 

[Starbucks]

Superhero Empire

http://superheroempire.com I'm still working on the themes and testing the layouts. Would love some feedback though! :) And hey if you would like to join and be active that would be better yet! ;)

xenforo.com

You might want to have a look at this.

 

[PatriotGB]

Yeah I'd advise against the pruning, especially based on just getting 'active' members.

Yes. I found this "advice" quite odd. "Kick'em out if they're not posting." Yeah, let's run members OFF the forum! LOL! I'm going to pass on that advice.

My goal isn't to have a membership made up of mostly "active" users. The goal is to have lots of great discussions. I don't care what the ratios of active : semi-active : inactive are. The reality for ALL forums I've encountered over the past THREE DECADES is that the core group of truly active posters is the minority. SO WHAT?

What matters is the CONTENT of the forum, the general CULTURE of the forum... and the TRAFFIC generated, if the forum is intended to be ultimately self-sustaining or even profitable with ads or sponsors.

I don't give a **** if XX% of the members just lurk. As long as they're visiting, reading, and BENEFITING from the information... I'm calling it a success.

 

[l3ta]

I consider myself a red-blooded flag-waving American Patriot (and Navy veteran). No tin foil hat. I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

Did you see any tic tac UFOs while in the Navy?

 

[PatriotGB]

Did you see any tic tac UFOs while in the Navy?

Haha.... No. Dammit!

 

[l3ta]

Haha.... No. Dammit!

I don't believe you. You're protecting your security clearance and your NDA

 

[PatriotGB]

What? Why should you do that? You have valuable informations like emails for example. And is a best practice that an account is forever if i don't choose deliberately to delete it. In our forum active since 2007 people value their account a lot. You receive points only because you registered your account years ago...deleting their accounts will make them angry or worst they will never register anymore. We often receive tickets to recover old accounts.

And he wonders why his forum was a complete failure?!?? The strangest advice on how to (not) GROW a social media platform. Piss lurkers off by canceling their accounts... so they can spread the word about how lurkers will be deleted.

Lurkers = Traffic. DUH.

Also... lurkers CAN (and often do) become active members. Sometimes YEARS later.

 

[Mendalla]

I want to believe.

 

[dknife]

You have valuable informations like emails for example.

Why are they valuable to you?